The sustainability of ‘ancient’: historical architecture as between needs of conservation and energy innovation

Environmental and energy emergency produced in the last 20 years a set of guidelines in the individual European nations and in the whole Union ranging from declarations of intent to memoranda of understanding to legislative actions. Current guidelines regarding common buildings are based mainly on improving the energy consumption performance, reducing waste, optimizing the use of sources, implementing new technologies and at the same time on the development of renewable energy sources. Oddly, it’s difficult to find similar and significant feedback in studies related to historical buildings restoration. The risk, once again, is related to an indiscriminate transposition of experimentation done in new construction to old ones. The culture of restoration and the concept of sustainability show, however, mutual convergence of intent, means and methods. For example, in Agenda 21 for sustainable construction, one of the major efforts to promote sustainability of urban settlements is the protection of historical heritage, which is closely related to the reuse of existing buildings. These are issues on which the culture of architectural restoration has built a solid concept, harshly criticizing the idea of architecture indifferent to duration, time passing and building place. The building is a historical document of great interest with the purpose of identifying ways of interacting with the environment in terms of sustainability, resource optimization, settlement response targeted for the climatic conditions of the site. An organic and conscious balance between building and environmental context that brings a synthesis of conflicting demands, such as the search for the best exposure together with the constraints imposed by site and paths from existing roads, or like rationalization of rooms distribution and windows with the needs of linguistic and formal layout of fronts: a balance which is often dynamic and amenable to compatible changes. The purpose of the contribution is reading through the workshop experience these modes of interaction between the architecture and its historical and environmental context, as features of the identity of a region, to elaborate a project in which instances of sustainability can combine with the maintenance of lesson from the past.

Negli ultimi venti anni il tema dell’emergenza ambientale ed energetica ha indirizzato le linee di ricerca nel settore edilizio verso il miglioramento delle prestazioni energetiche al consumo, intese come riduzione degli sprechi, ottimizzazione dell’utilizzo delle fonti, implementazione di nuove tecnologie e potenziamento dell’utilizzo delle fonti di energia rinnovabile. Singolarmente, non è possibile riscontrare un simile, significativo riscontro negli studi più propriamente legati al tema del restauro degli edifici storici, in cui la questione, seppur con incisività di riflessione, è stata affrontata solo episodicamente. Il rischio che si palesa è, ancora una volta, quello di una indiscriminata trasposizione della sperimentazione compiuta nel settore delle nuove costruzioni alle fabbriche antiche. Il contributo propone una lettura delle modalità di interazione fra l’architettura storica ed il suo contesto ambientale, che contribuiscono poi a determinare la matrice identitaria dell’architettura di una regione, con l’intento di trarne validi spunti per un progetto in cui le istanze di sostenibilità si possano coniugare con la conservazione della lezione proveniente dal passato.